Beers/ales and the art of making your own - how?

Have taken a liking for real ale/beer, no fizzy yellow watery stuff anymore thanks. Thinking of making a few bottles of my own and wondered what does the STW collective use? Any suitable reading material and guidance on the subject that is particularly good? Where to get the kit (online) and whatever else is needed?

For kit brews I'd recommend the two can kits from brupaks, St Peter's etc. Equipment wise you'll need at least one fermenting vessel, a big long plastic spoon, hydrometer & trial jar, and bottles or keg to store it in.

For all grain the easiest method is Brew In A Bag, for which you'll need a boiler, mashing bag and thermometer in addition to the above.

the copper coil is an immersion chiller, optional but it saves leaving the hot wort overnight to cool down to yeast temperature. put this in the boiler for the last 15 minutes of the boil, then run cold water through it until the wort is down to 25degrees or less. Takes about 30-40 minutes

Did you make your own immersion chiller John? - I keep meaning to get one and it looks like you could just bend some copper pipe around a cyclindrical object to make your own. Not sure on the price of copper pipe, mind.

Kit required is as John above suggests - most home brew shops will sell you this as a kit. You also need to consider how you will store your beer once its made - bottles or keg and buy the equipment for this too.

Beer kits are a very good way to get started. I've tried Brupaks and St Peters kits and have had good results with both.

I've now moved on to extract kits - Brupaks brewers choice - its a good way to try different customisation options without going to the more complicated all grain methods.

At work ( brewery ) we have alot of 12ft lengths of stainless steel coils from the insides of Lager chillers. They fit inside home brew buckets as they are wound back on themselves , approx 12" x 14" .
Perfect for cooling wort , just connect to your cold tap and run the drain to waste .
Yours for P & P if you want one .
One problem is I am not at work as will be on sick leave as having hand cut open tomorrow, so will be off for 6 ish weeks .

This is my BIAB set up currently mashing as I type this:
6kg Crisp pale malt
100g Citra hops
Safale US-05

I think the two tin kits are a good way to start and gets you into a good routine sterilising equipment etc. What I have found the positives of all-grain over extract to be is at worst I can make a very nice drinkable beer whilst with extract kits they all have that 'homebrew' taste, some more than others.

Wilkos had a brilliant offer on last week, 50% of all their homebrew range, kits and equipment so I well stocked up!

Going even smaller I do micro-BIAB on the stove - usually working with less than 7l of wort after extraction so I can use a sink filled with ice water as a chiller rather than bothering with proper cooling systems. Works surprisingly well although I do have more clarity issues than proper set ups.

Just finishing off the last bottles of a Green Coffee Pale Ale at moment and i've got an oaked single hop citra IPA on the secondary which I'll be bottling tonight. Very small batches means you can have some fun experimenting.

I'm going to get one of these BIABs on the go, but I need a substantially bigger brewpot.
Do ye brewers reckon that an urn with heating element (like patriot matt posted up there) is a good choice? I quite like the simplicity of just a big old pot on the stove, but I'm not sure my hob is big enough to support an 8 or 10 gall vessel safely. The burners are good, but I'd be a bit concerned about it wobbling with the kids running around the kitchen.
I see people use standalone propane burners, and I have a cellar, but looking to minimise expense.